


Hiding in Purrfect View

by KHansen



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25052992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KHansen/pseuds/KHansen
Summary: When a bounty is put on Jaskier's head, he's encouraged to go undercover as a professor at Oxenfurt Academy until the bounty has either expired or the bounty hunter gives up. In a cruel twist of fate, the hunter figures out Jaskier's ruse and the Cat quickly becomes the mouse.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 14
Kudos: 181





	Hiding in Purrfect View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CassandrasDreamworld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandrasDreamworld/gifts), [andrewminyards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrewminyards/gifts), [brothebro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brothebro/gifts).



> Thanks to Cas (Cassandrasdreamworld) for the prompt! I didn't follow it one hundo but I think I like how this turned out better even if I hate the title I chose for it :)
> 
> This is work number 100 in the Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion tag, woo!

As the first light of dawn touches the sky and lightens the cumulonimbus layer that sits heavily over the sleeping city of Oxenfurt, turning the dark clouds a dull gray color, birds begin to twitter in the trees and the luminescent eyes of silent alleycats fade into the shadows. The beginnings of wispy plumes of smoke rise from the chimneys of bakers and the sea laps at the docks that line both the city and the island of the Academy, rocking moored boats against the pillars and wooden boards with dull thunks and the rattling of chains. A steady wind, heavy with the tangy smell of oncoming rain, snaps the canvas of rolled sails and the cloth of pennants and banners hung in the streets. As the city slowly awakens with shuffling feet and muffled groans, popping bones and crying babes, a sudden hush befalls the inhabitants of the fair Redanian metropolis. 

Piercing the silence and puncturing the veil between night and day is the eruption of a screeching roar from the sewers, the sound akin to metal on a chalkboard and shattering glass as it vibrates out of the drains that line the cobblestone streets and rock the very foundations of Oxenfurt. The nightmarish ululation awakens anyone who had still been hanging on to the last vestiges of sleep and shutters are thrown open for people to hang out of windows, doors bursting outwards along the sidewalks of the residential district as humans and non-human neighbors all flood out of their homes in various states of dress to find out what could be causing such a ruckus.

“Look!” A child in one such neighborhood cries, pointing towards the sewer grate. The metal of the storm drain is rattling in its foundations, the bolts loosening and whining as the steel screams from the strong burst of wind that blows out of the sewer, carrying dirt and debris in its wake. A moment later the grate explodes out of the ground as a colorful body is thrown through it. The man soars at least twenty feet into the air before righting himself as he begins to descend back towards the ground, landing with his feet on the edges of the storm drain. 

The weak rays of dawn shine on the twin, blood-stained blades in his gloved hands and although this man is not dressed anything like the part, clad in a delicate wine colored shirt and deep blue trousers, the gleam of his Witcher medallion is identifiable to anyone at a distance. A spitting cat resting upon the man’s breast.

**_3 Days Earlier_ **

Jaskier sighs as he rubs his temples, hunched over with his elbows resting on his desk and letting his hair fall down to form a curtain around his face. He should really do something about it but every time he starts thinking about getting the thick tresses cut something comes up and he has to postpone the appointment with the barber yet again. His split ends have reached his chin at this point and he starts and ends every day with his hair in snaggles, which makes his favorite past-time of running his hands through it when exasperated very difficult to partake in.

He looks down at the stacks of poetry in front of him and he knows he should finish grading these, he’s due to return them to his students tomorrow and it’s unwise of him to leave it to the very last minute  _ again _ , but with the headache that’s brewing and the stormy sky outside he just wants to curl up in front of a hot fire and work on his own compositions. Or take a long nap. Honestly, he would even take just a cup of tea that hasn’t gone cold because he forgot about it right now.

With a groan, Jaskier throws himself back in his chair and his spine pops as it slams against the high back, relieving some of the pressure there at least. He closes his eyes and rolls his shoulders as he yawns, taking a few moments to focus in the moment as he stretches each muscle group out methodically. Down the hall he can hear the familiar sounds of Professor Hartel having sex with her wife against her desk in her office, the two of them being appropriately quiet and he feels a small pang of sympathy for their lack of privacy even so. It isn’t his fault he can hear heartbeats through walls and smell the heady aroma of their arousal as it wafts through the corridor on the cool sea breeze. 

Beyond them, in the courtyard, the droning voice of Valdo Marx drifts across the lawn as he gives a guest lecture and Jaskier tunes him out as quickly as he can, no reason to lose any skills by mere absorption of background noise. Over the chattering din of students that echoes throughout the halls of the Academy and the gentle roar of the ocean as it batters the riprap around the island, Jaskier picks out a voice that sounds familiar in timbre and tone. The fact that the indistinguishable words are punctuated with a  _ very _ familiar whinny confirms his suspicions and a pleased smile settles on the bard’s face.

He links his fingers together as he stretches his arms out in front of him, his shoulders popping loudly, and then gets to his feet to reach for the ceiling and then his toes, easily curling his arms around the backs of his calves before he straightens up again and pushes his hair back out of his face. Jaskier pauses at the little mirror beside the door to his office and rubs his hand over his stubbled chin, grimacing slightly at the rough texture against his palm. Not much he can do now, there’s no time to shave before his guest will reach his chambers. Instead he spins a plain silver ring on his left ring finger, the engraving on the inside of the metal smoothed from years of the nervous action. 

He then slips it off and feels his skin prickle as chaos kisses it. Jaskier becomes paler, like he hasn’t seen the sun in decades, his cheekbones just that little bit sharper and his body just a touch broader with muscles hidden by the glamour. Scars slice through his skin, silvery ones faded with age alongside pink ones from more recent endeavors. One such set of twin scars pulls down from his forehead and through his right eye before veering off to steal a part of his ear, the lobe a jagged and scarred edge. 

The shadows that rest perpetually under his eyes seem darker against his lighter skin tone and his already vibrant eyes seem to become an electric blue, his irises split in twain by vertical pupils. He sighs and touches his chest gently, feeling the familiar weight of his medallion beneath his cream shirt. For once, he has been wearing his clothing properly laced up and it bugs the shit out of him, the feeling of any kind of fabric against his collarbone or neck making him grimace. He rubs his hand over the silver scar on his neck, a clean cut across his jugular that he was lucky didn’t go deep enough to make him bleed out before he could stem the flow with Kiss, before slipping the ring back on and the glamour settles upon his skin like a coat that’s being worn in a room that’s just this side of being too warm for layers.

Jaskier spins the ring on his finger a few more times as he looks at himself clinically in the mirror, searching the magic for any faults or weaknesses that indicate a need to get a new enchantment. He doesn’t spy any so he’s probably fine for another few weeks before he’ll need the glamour to be reinforced or replaced. With that in mind, Jaskier opens the door to his office and strides out, locking it behind him and making his way through the halls of the Academy towards the staff accommodations. He hums a jaunty tune under his breath, putting snatches and snippets of lyrics that float through his forebrain to the melody to see if anything incites inspiration. Nothing does, though, and when he reaches the door to his quarters he pauses and takes a deep breath.

He smells the sharp scent of worn stones from these halls being walked daily for a hundred years and the general sweat and dirt musk of humans. There’s a subtle spice to it from the teenage boys on the grounds down below and he can pick up the faint scent of dried seaweed and the must of algae from the mermaid nest he knows isn’t too far off shore. The strongest scents he’s picking up, however, come from the other side of the door he’s standing in front of. The intimate smell of sun-warmed leather, the lather of a worked horse’s flank, and an undercurrent of the ozone fragrance of chaos that even most Witchers wouldn’t smell. The combination of aromas is so familiar that it instantly brings a sense of calm to Jaskier’s mind. It smells like  _ home _ .

The door to his rooms opens before he’s even lifted his hand towards the handle, golden eyes that spark with fond amusement look him over and the White Wolf shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest with a smirk, “How long were you planning on just standing out here? Do you need an invitation into your own bed?”

“I’ll have you know I was enjoying the view,” Jaskier sniffs haughtily and glances around the hall before gesturing at the tapestry on the wall across from his door, “It’s a rather dashing piece of artwork. Although I’d say I’m looking at a masterpiece, now.” He grins as he pointedly roams his eyes over the full length of the Witcher before him.

Geralt snorts and rolls his eyes, “That was terrible and you know it. Got anything better for me to allow you into the room?”

“Oh! Oh, I need  _ permission _ now to enter my rooms?” The bard laughs and tries to shove past Geralt, “as if. They’re  _ my _ rooms, Wolf.”

“Hmm, maybe so but I got here first,” Geralt puts on an air of indifference as he plants his feet and doesn’t allow Jaskier to pass, his broad frame filling the doorway, “Move your feet, lose your seat.”

“That doesn’t even make sense in this context,” Jaskier complains as he pushes on Geralt’s chest half-heartedly. They both know that they’re relatively evenly matched when it comes to tousling, and if Jaskier really wanted into the rooms he would be trying harder. “Let me in, Geralt.”

“What’s the magic word?” Geralt taunts with a teasing grin, his sharp canines on full display.

“I love you?”

“Nope.”

“You’re the light of my life.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Jaskier groans good-naturedly, “Fuck you.”

Geralt’s smile becomes predatory as he narrows his eyes at Jaskier, “Do it yourself, coward.”

The bard playfully glares at him for a moment before abruptly kicking the inside of Geralt’s ankle with his heel to knock the Wolf’s stance wider before he quickly slips between Geralt’s legs to enter the room. He elbows the back of the White Wolf’s knee to make it buckle as he twists around and stands in one fluid motion, catching his Wolf before Geralt can drop enough to do more than widen his eyes in surprise and loosen his crossed arms in preparation to catch himself.

“You didn’t think I’d let you fall, did you?” Jaskier purrs, one arm beneath Geralt’s shoulders and the other wrapped around the Wolf’s waist as he holds the man in the dip.

Geralt huffs a laugh and uncrosses his arms, wrapping them around the bard’s shoulders, “Dunno, you did on Skellige.”

“That was hardly my fault and if you want me to kiss you then it’s in your best interest not to mention that particular adventure of ours, Wolf,” he sticks his tongue out at Geralt, who sighs at Jaskier’s childish antics and then surges up to capture the bard’s lips in a heated kiss.

Later, as they’re laying entwined together in Jaskier’s bed with sweat cooling on their bare skin and the intoxicating scent of sex in the air, Jaskier finds himself deep in thought as Geralt dozes lightly behind him. It’s more of a meditative state than anything so Jaskier doesn’t feel too bad as he gently clears his throat to get the Wolf’s attention. Geralt hums to acknowledge his mental presence and also laces his fingers through Jaskier’s as he lays his own left hand atop the bard’s, the soft clink of colliding metal reaching his ears and making the corners of his lips twitch. It’s been nearly a decade but he still can’t believe that they’re married sometimes. Witchers are taught and raised with the idea that you can have nothing but the path and your brothers, at most. No connections, as they would make you weak and slow. These ideals were drilled into Geralt at the Wolf school, and the Cat school was no different even though their mutations make Jaskier overly emotional sometimes.

“Jaskier,” Geralt murmurs, pulling the bard out of his thoughts and gently reminding him that he was the one who wanted Geralt’s attention.

Jaskier hums softly before speaking, “My dear, not that I don’t love having you here, because I very much do, I wasn’t expecting you until Autumn. It’s hardly a month past midsummer.”

“Wanted to see you, Kitty,” Geralt nuzzles the back of Jaskier’s neck and the bard smiles as he lifts his other hand over his head to nestle his long fingers in Geralt’s soft hair, massaging his scalp soothingly.

“And is that all, dear heart?” Jaskier asks lightly, “It’s just that, in the handful of other times I’ve gone into hiding because someone had set a bounty on my head, we always stick to our schedules.” Geralt is quiet and it’s not just the quiet of him thinking, it’s the heavy silence of him not wanting to tell Jaskier something. 

Jaskier carefully rolls over to face his wolf, gently brushing white hair back off of his husband’s face, “What is it, Geralt?” He searches Geralt’s eyes for any sort of insight as to what could be the problem. 

Geralt presses his lips into a thin line and sighs, taking Jaskier’s left hand between both of his larger ones and kneading the muscles of the bard’s hand as he keeps his eyes down, “Someone has let it slip that you’re here in Oxenfurt. Bonhart’s on his way here as we speak.”

There’s blood in his eyes from a cut along his hairline and he can taste it on his tongue as well from where his sharp teeth bit through his lip, the copper tang filling his nose and making it difficult to scent anything else. His shirt is sticking uncomfortably to his skin, the wine dark silk damp with sweat and more blood and little more than tatters that cling to his torso at this point. His blue eyes dart around the street, taking in the number of humans just standing there and staring at him dumbly before another earth shattering howl echoes through the sewers. He swears vehemently and bounces on the balls of his feet for a few moments as he thinks of what to do before looking around again with a snarl.

“Get inside! What are you, stupid? You wanna get eaten by fucking monsters? Go back inside!”

At his yell of warning, several things happen. The humans scream and hurry back into their homes and he sighs in relief that he doesn’t have to worry about avoiding casualties; however, this distraction was enough that another man has jumped out of the sewers, drawn to the surface by the Witcher’s voice. This man wields just a single, silver longsword with black leather wrapping the grip that’s clutched tightly in the man’s bare left hand, a glint of light reflecting off a plain silver band.

A single fat drop of rain splatters on the dry cobblestone, staining that spot a darker brown, and it’s soon followed by another drop and another as the wind picks up and becomes a howling gale, whipping the long white hair of the man wielding the longsword into his gray eyes. The Witcher takes this opportunity to dart into an alley, jumping up and pushing off of one building with a strong kick to do the same with the other building flanking the alleyway until he reaches the rooftops. He reconnects his twin blades and sheaths them for ease of running, sprinting as fast as he can across the tiled roofs that are quickly growing slick with the rain that mixes with the blood in his eyes and plasters his hair to his face.

A quick glance behind him reveals that the man has climbed to the rooftops as well and is in pursuit. It was also a poorly timed look, the Witcher’s exhaustion weighing heavily on him, and his foot slips on a loose shingle as he tried to push off of it to jump to the next roof. He yelps and pinwheels his arms fruitlessly as he tumbles off of the roof, hitting the ground two stories below with a dull thud and a sickening crunch.

**_2 Days Earlier_ **

“And you’re sure that you think waiting for Bonhart to get here is the best course of action?” Jaskier asks for the fourth time that morning as he nervously paces back and forth from one wall of his room to the other. Geralt is perched on the edge of the bed, his silver sword balanced on his knees as he watches the bard travel the same fifteen feet over and over again.

“No,” Geralt sighs, giving Jaskier the same answer he did the first three times when he told the bard his plan, “But we’re two Witchers against a bounty hunter. Doesn’t matter how good he is, no one can best two Witchers alone.”

“And if he’s not?” Jaskier asks sharply, stopping in front of the bed to place his hands on his hips. He has yet to get dressed for the day so his torso is bare, displaying smooth skin layered with soft, dark hair. Without the glamour he would be a patchwork doll of scar tissue and while Geralt likes how Jaskier looks no matter what, the fact that the fall of Stygga Castle is immortalized on Jaskier’s skin is a sore spot for the bard. “What then, Geralt?”

“Then we flee,” the White Wolf replies calmly. He can’t lose his temper or else Jaskier will snap. The Cat feeds off the energy of any room he’s in, his mutations making it difficult to control his emotions once he passes a certain threshold, so it’s easiest if Geralt acts as a sort of lodestone for Jaskier’s more erratic emotions like anxiety. “It’ll be okay, Jask. He shouldn’t get here for another week or two on foot from where I last heard he was. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Jaskier’s fingers tighten on his hips until his knuckles turn white and the only thing saving his skin from being cut by his nails is his soft sleep pants. He takes a long and deep breath in through his nose before slowly hissing it out between his teeth and nodding, “Okay. Yeah, okay. You’re probably right. So what have you got the sword out for then?”

“Posting for a siren nest in the sewers,” Geralt gets to his feet and sheaths his sword over his shoulder, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Jaskier’s waist, “You’ve been slacking so someone’s gotta pick it up.”

The bard rolls his eyes and ducks his head to rest it against Geralt’s shoulder, sighing softly as he feels some of the tension leave his body in the embrace of his lover, “Hyuck it up, it’s not exactly easy to be discreet when you look relatively the same as a Witcher and a human because of a low level glamour.”

“Well, if Yennefer did a stronger one then you would be nauseous all the time and you hate being nauseated,” the Wolf points out and Jaskier huffs indignantly.

“I stand by my decisions, Wolf. If I’m going to vomit then I should just vomit, none of that ‘will he won’t he’ nonsense.”

Geralt chuckles and presses his lips to the top of Jaskier’s head before ruffling the bard’s hair and stepping back, “You need a trim, Kitty.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes and swats the White Wolf’s hand away, “Cut that out, I have to get ready for my lectures and then go to the market. You have everything you need for a siren’s nest?”

The Wolf hums and touches his hand to the potion pouch on his belt, “Kiss, Cat, Swallow-”

“In that order.”

Geralt gives him an unimpressed look even as the corners of his lips twitch up, “White Honey, just in case. Couple’a flare bombs to try and flush them out if I need to.” Jaskier nods, satisfied that Geralt is thoroughly prepared, and presses a chaste kiss to his husband’s lips.

“Hurry back, my darling Wolf. I’ll have a bath warmed and waiting for you, and if that’s not enough incentive then just know that I will be welcoming you back with open arms and very little clothes,” Jaskier murmurs as he lightly pinches Geralt’s chin between his fingers and presses another kiss to his wolf’s pink lips.

“I’ll be counting on that,” Geralt smiles into the kiss before pulling away and Jaskier sees him to the door, leaning against the frame with crossed arms as he watches Geralt walk away.

“I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave,” the bard says quietly and grins impishly as Geralt glances over his shoulder and flips Jaskier off before turning a corner and disappearing from sight. Jaskier heaves a sigh and then closes the door to his room, he ought to get ready for his lectures, getting dressed in a navy blue doublet with matching trousers, a wine red shirt underneath.

His classes go smoothly, or as smoothly as they can when you’ve annoyed your students yet again by forgetting to finish grading their assignments. At least this time his excuse isn’t that he was getting raging drunk in a tavern somewhere, and when he tells Geralt about his student’s ire he’s planning on teasing his wolf about how he explained that his husband is visiting and Jaskier intends to get full benefits of the man being useful for  _ something _ . It’s with high spirits and a small spring in his step that Jaskier enters the market that’s just on the other side of the bridge to the Academy’s island, inhaling softly with a smile.

Most of the time, going to the market can be very overwhelming for Jaskier. With all the sights and sounds and smells, even the number of things touching him as people bump into him or he brushes against things. Without Geralt there as an anchor, as something to focus on, Jaskier almost never goes to the market. Today, however, the zingy scent of non-magical ozone that indicates impending rain is strong enough to act as an anchor instead.

He flits from stall to stall, purchasing necessities like rations for when he’s deep in the creative process and can’t be bothered to go to the dining hall and sugar cubes to spoil Roach rotten with as he hasn’t seen her in several months and he vows to stop by the stables on his way back to the Academy. He also purchases a new dagger, can’t have too many of those, he thinks as he stubbornly ignores the thirty seven other daggers stashed in increasingly ridiculous spots around his room and the three on his person at all times; one dagger in each boot, one at his hip, and his twin short swords strapped to his back and hidden by his doublet.

Jaskier is on his way to a stall selling baked goods that smell absolutely divine when the back of his neck prickles uncomfortably as though he’s being watched. Being careful to not change his facial expression, he moves to the entrance of an open alley and kneels down like he’s just tightening the laces on his boots. He scans the crowds of people walking by for anyone suspicious or that would make his medallion vibrate.

It’s not until it’s too late that he thinks to check the other end of the alleyway, something hard hitting his temple and making the world go dark.

The Witcher groans and he pulls himself upright into a seated position, his head pounding and his vision both doubling and blurring. When he gingerly touches the back of his skull, a spike of pain lances through his head and his fingers come away bloody, making his stomach roll nauseatingly. He hauls himself to his feet and the nausea increases with his vertigo, resting a hand against the nearest solid structure as he waits for the dizziness to pass enough for him to start moving again.

“I hate being nauseous,” he mutters to himself before gritting his teeth against the pain and the sting of bile at the back of his throat and staggering forward a few steps. He doesn’t make it far before he’s doubling over and vomiting with one arm wrapped around his twitching stomach, his other hand braced against his knee. There’s the heavy sound of boots hitting the ground behind him as he coughs and spits a few times to try and relieve himself of some of the acrid bile that stings his tongue.

With a glance over his shoulder, the Witcher staggers forward again, a few more steps away from the white haired man, until he trips over his own dragging feet and falls to his hands and knees, “Ah, fuck. C’mon, Geralt, gimme a break.”

Geralt’s gray eyes look right through him and the Witcher grimaces as he forces himself back to his feet, turning and starting to run again towards the city center. He’s so close, maybe he’ll make it even with the pained hobble he’s doing now.

**_1 Day Earlier_ **

Jaskier’s head hurts when consciousness slowly filters back to him. First comes his sense of taste, and gods does his mouth taste something awful. It’s dry and tacky as his tongue sticks to the roof of it almost unnaturally and his saliva is sour and gritty. Next comes his hearing, not much to report there other than the sound of a second slow heartbeat, that must belong to Geralt, nearby along with a regular human heartbeat. Unnervingly close he can also hear the cacophony of numerous heartbeats in an enclosed space, the Siren nest.

His sense of smell follows and his nausea returns full force, making his stomach roll violently and bile rise in his throat until he forces it back down again. It reeks of death and decay in here and Jaskier would like to be literally anywhere else right now. He assumes he gets his sight back but he keeps his eyes closed so that his captor doesn’t know that he’s awake and he’s suddenly consumed with the desire to check on Geralt. What if the slow heartbeat doesn’t belong to Geralt? What if it’s another Witcher who’s been tangled up in Geralt and Jaskier’s, admittedly, numerous problems?

It’s while he’s thinking these concerning thoughts that he realizes he’s laying down on a stone table and there’s metal encircling his wrists and ankles. This is extremely worrying because things like this implies other things happening that would require access to the entire body and also restraining your victim. He decides to risk opening his eyes just a sliver, peering through his eyelashes to see if he can’t see anything immediately dangerous to his person.

He can’t see much of the room he’s in through his eyelashes but he can see Geralt’s white hair to his right, looking like he’s sitting upright, and a man with gray hair fiddling with something nearby. He can’t smell any sirens or anything that he thinks would attack without giving him the chance to reason with it first so he decides to let his captor know he’s awake in the most dramatic way possible.

Jaskier yawns loudly before smacking his lips obnoxiously and looking directly at the gray-haired man. This must be Leo Bonhart, a bounty hunter renowned for hunting Witchers. “Really, mate, I gotta admit I’ve had better rest on the floor of a barn. Couldn’t have given me at least a little hay for my dainty head?”

It gives Jaskier no small amount of glee that Bonhart jumps in surprise and spins around to face him, his ghastly pale face looking vaguely ashen from the shock. Bonhart is ghoulishly thin and very tall, maybe even taller than Geralt, and is sporting a horrendously bushy mustache. Hung from his neck are three Witcher medallions: one wolf, one cat, and one griffin. His eyes are pale and dead like a fish and if Jaskier hadn’t been on the Path for almost a century alongside Geralt he would have shuddered at a lifeless gaze like that being turned on him.

“Dainty is the last thing I’d call any of you freaks,” Bonhart rasps, his voice aggressively hoarse, “You’re a difficult man to find, Julian of Kerack.”

“Mm, it’s Jaskier, actually. I’d prefer that, if you don’t mind terribly,” Jaskier smiles at him politely, “I’m afraid I don’t know who this Julian of Kerack is. I’m from Lettenhove.”

Bonhart looks at him before pulling something out of the pocket of his long overcoat and raising it up, twisting it between his fingers so the metal catches the flickering light of the torches on the walls, “I commend your commitment, but it’s worthless without the glamour, Julian.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m still going by Jaskier. Have been for the last thirty years,” he snaps irritably. His head hurts and he’s kind of tired and he just wants to go back to his bed at this point, “Where’d you even get this bounty from? Everyone who knew me as Julian is dead now.”

“Most, not everyone,” Bonhart caresses the cat medallion and Julian’s stomach twists as he snarls and pulls against his bindings.

“ _ Who did you take that from _ ?” There’s only him and Aiden left of the School of the Cat, and he only got wind of there being a bounty on his head two years ago which means that…

“A lovely lad, a really just very trusting boy named Gaetan.”

Jaskier stares at Bonhart for a long few moments before bursting into laughter. It straddles the threshold of hysteria before the bounty hunter’s irate expression calms him down again, “You don’t actually expect me to believe that, do you?”

“What-”

“I mean,  _ Gaetan _ ? What, did you pull his name out of a fucking journal or something?” He laughs again, “First of all, Gaetan is six feet under with everyone else who died in the siege on Stygga, which happened almost 50 years ago, so unless you’re telling me you killed a Witcher when you were… ten? That’s your first fault. Second is that Gaetan is one of the very  _ last _ people I’d  _ ever _ call lovely or trusting. He was a right paranoid bastard up until the very end.”

Bonhart scowls and there’s suddenly a choked cough from Jaskier’s right where Geralt is sitting and his head snaps over as his heart jackrabbits in fear. Geralt is unrestrained where he’s seated but his hands are at his neck and his fingers stuck in between the chain of his medallion and his skin, his eyes tightly closed.

“What are you doing to him? Stop that!”

Bonhart watches Jaskier with those dead eyes and that nasty scowl a few moments longer before tapping the wolf medallion around his neck and the choking stops, the wolf Witcher taking heaving breaths and coughing to open up his airways again. Jaskier watches Geralt closely to make sure that his husband is able to recover his ability to breathe without complications and when Geralt opens his eyes Jaskier inhales sharply through his nose.

“What the fuck did you do to him?”

Bonhart waves his hand dismissively, “He’s just a little ensnared is all. A teeny bit enchanted. He’ll do whatever I tell him to and if he doesn’t or if you do something that I don’t particularly like then his pretty little necklace will just become his noose.”

Jaskier is thinking quickly, trying to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it. His chest feels tight and his stomach is hot with something molten crawling around in there but if he can keep Bonhart talking, “The siren contract, that was you?”

“Yes and no. There really are sirens down here, but they weren’t down here before I arrived in Oxenfurt,” Bonhart grins but with those pale, flat eyes it’s a horrendous grimace of bared teeth. Jaskier’s hands are trembling from the building anxiety and anger and frustration and he wants to close his eyes to try and meditate, to calm down like he and Geralt have practiced so that he doesn’t lash out and hurt any-

“And if you got both of us killed? What was going to happen with the sirens?” Jaskier asks through grit teeth. He knows what the answer is going to be but he needs to hear the bastard say it.

Bonhart picks up a dagger from a nearby table and casually flips it in his hand, “Who gives a shit? I would be long gone by the time they get out of the sewers to wreak havoc up above.”

The thing about the School of the Cat is that they loved to experiment. They were always trying fun new things with the mutagens, tweaking the recipes to improve the senses more than any other school as well as get rid of all emotions in their Witchers. That didn’t work so well so they went the opposite direction and made their mutagens  _ enhance  _ the emotions of their students. And what happens when someone feels very strongly about something is that they get a rush of adrenaline. Most Witchers don’t get adrenaline rushes anymore because of their mutagens stemming that and a physically enhanced human getting an extra boost of strength could be incredibly damaging. But Cats… well Cats are just plain crazy.

Jaskier sees red at the easy admission of disregard for innocent lives, this being the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak, and tips the scales of his emotional state from unbalanced to fully unstable. He feels a rush of heat flash through his limbs and he roars as he pulls his arms free, shattering the metal bonds and grabbing Bonhart by the collar to throw the man across the room before doing the same with the bonds on his ankles. He has just enough cognitive ability left to grab his twin swords, slinging the strap over his head, and flinging a dagger that he grabs off the table with devastating accuracy, the blade sinking into the bounty hunter’s chest between two ribs. He then grabs the three medallions that hang around Bonhart’s neck and pulls them off, their clasps breaking easily against his strength, and he stuffs them into his pocket protectively.

As Jaskier turns to Geralt he hears Bonhart gasp out his last words, “Wolf… fetch.”

And Geralt unsheathes his sword.

Jaskier is tired. He is so, so incredibly tired. It’s a bone deep,  _ soul _ deep exhaustion. He’s been running for hours now, he’s not entirely certain how much time has passed exactly but he thinks it’s more than half a day but less than a full one. He’d been leading Geralt on a merry chase around the sewers until they ran into the Sirens and scared them off without too much fuss, only needing to cut down a handful of them because apparently two Witchers coming tearing down the tunnels like bats out of hell is a frightening thing to see for a monster. Doesn’t really matter, they left and it’s one less thing to worry about at this exact second in time.

He hurts all over, too. His head is pounding and swimming and his vision is swinging and spinning wildly like when he was a boy and Brehen would hold him by the ankles and spin around in circles until he was so dizzy that the sky spun in circles. Why did he think that was fun? It’s horrible now. He’s barely been able to not keel over and vomit again and his knee and hip hurts something terrible from landing on them after falling off a fucking roof.

He’s staggering and stumbling and somehow moving faster than Geralt still which is a miracle in itself but he can hear the White Wolf gaining ground and catching up to him. He has no energy left for any sort of signs to help him so he has to make it to the city center before he destroys the wolf medallion in his pocket. Oxenfurt, like so many other cities, was built on top of Elven ruins and the most potent concentration of the ruins are in the city center so that’s where the chaos is going to be the most willing to help him without instruction.

There’s a searing pain down the back of his left leg and Jaskier shouts wordlessly in response to the fire lancing through his muscle now, hot blood dripping down his thigh and pooling in his boot. He senses Geralt hesitate behind him when he screamed in pain but he doesn’t have time to analyze that. He needs to keep moving, he just needs to keep moving.

With a sound bursting free of his chest that Jaskier would never admit is a sob, he lurches into the large open clearing of the city center, a beautiful fountain dominating the center of the pedestrian space and Jaskier yanks the medallions out of his pocket, collapsing at the side of the fountain and feeling for curves of muzzle of the wolf before tossing it onto the edge of the fountain as he draws his swords. He leaves them interlocked and drives the pommel down onto the medallion once, twice, three times until the metal cracks and splinters apart and he feels the prickling of chaos whisper over his skin as it escapes the medallion.

Jaskier glances over his shoulder at Geralt who has sprinted into the open center as well and his heart plummets as he sees those gray, emotionless eyes set on him and his White Wolf begins to stalk over. Jaskier turns back to the other two medallions and grabs the Griffin one, smashing it with three strikes again and looking back at Geralt quickly, his swelling panic becoming almost impossible to ignore as that didn’t seem to do it either. He centers the Cat medallion and whispers, “sorry, brother,” before slamming down that pommel three times until the medallion shatters as well. He turns around to look-

-and has to immediately bring his swords up to block a vicious swing by Geralt, unlocking the blades and crossing them to catch Geralt’s sword between them. He’s hacking and slashing with wild abandon at Jaskier as the Cat struggles to stay upright and wobbles with every strike, the last of his strength waning. He’s not sure what to do, what could stop this, when Jaskier’s eyes land on the medallion around Geralt’s own neck. 

In a last ditch attempt to stop this, Jaskier tosses aside one of his blades so he can reach forward and grab Geralt’s wrist, pressing down on the pressure point behind the meat of his palm to try and make him release his sword. It works and Geralt’s finger’s slacken, but not before the sword bites deep into Jaskier’s unarmored shoulder, making him scream. Just like before, Geralt hesitates at the sound of pain, but this time Jaskier can’t take advantage of it, the hot fires of agony blurring his vision even further and he stumbles closer to Geralt, wrapping his fingers around the medallion. He’s about to pull it off when he feels something prod at his stomach amidst the roiling inferno he’s in right now and Jaskier looks down to see a dagger sticking out of his abdomen, Geralt’s hand wrapped around the hilt.

“Oh,” he says weakly, and promptly crumples to the ground. His weight rips the medallion free from Geralt’s neck and the chain slithering over his hand pulls his mind from the fog of pain just enough for him to roll onto his side and set the medallion down, lifting his swords and hitting the wolf face one, two, three, four, five times before it shatters.

He falls back and lets his eyes shut, much too exhausted to be able to check on Geralt right now. He’s just going to rest his eyes for a moment and then he’ll see if it worked. This isn’t so bad, all things considered, things aren’t hurting as much anymore at least. The rain isn’t even cold anymore. Just a little nap will be fine.

“ _ Jaskier _ !”

**_3 Days Later_ **

With the scent of sun-warmed leather, the lather of a worked horse, and the undertones of ozone in his nose, Jaskier groans as he wakes up to a dull throb in his head, shoulder, and stomach. His mouth tastes like shit, which is always a sign of having taken potions, and he gently smacks his lips as he tries to figure out which ones he took. He doesn’t remember taking any, doesn’t remember much at all after breaking Geralt’s medallion actually.

There’s movement next to the bed and then he hears Geralt say softly, “Kiss and two Swallows.”

“And I’m still not 100%?” Jaskier croaks, forcing his eyes to open and squinting against the harsh light of dawn. It’s probably not that harsh, not really, but he has no idea how many days his eyes have been closed. “Damn. I got got good.”

“Jask…” Geralt sighs and the bard shifts his eyes to look over at him. He’s sitting in a chair at Jaskier’s bedside, dark shadows under his eyes from not sleeping for however long it's been and his eyes are rimmed with red.

“Aw, you’d cry for me? That’s so sweet of you,” Jaskier reaches out to take Geralt’s hand but the Wolf pulls away, guilt etched into every line of his face. Jaskier frowns in response and makes a grabby hand at him, “Don’t be cruel, Wolf, I can’t move to get you over there. Come hold your dear husband’s hand.”

Geralt frowns deeper but sighs and gingerly slips his hand into Jaskier’s.

“Excellent, thank you, dear heart,” he squeezes Geralt’s hand gently, “Now, remember that time you and I were taking care of a hedge witch and she cursed me to attack the people I love?” 

His wolf looks up at him with a puzzled expression and nods slowly, “Yes?”

“And I hurt you pretty badly?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Geralt protests but Jaskier just gives him a level look and he looks down, “Okay, yeah I remember.”

“You told me after that it wasn’t my fault for what happened to you, yeah? Because I wasn’t in control of my actions due to an outside influence.”

“That’s a completely different-,” Geralt makes the connection and tries to argue but Jaskier cuts him off:

“No, it really isn’t. You weren’t in control of your actions, Geralt, thus it wasn’t your fault.”

“But-”

“Nope, no buts,” Jaskier shakes his head gently so he doesn’t make his vision start practicing its cartwheels again, “Except for yours getting into bed so I can hug you. I’m very tired and very lonely and want my husband.”

Geralt watches him for a long few moments before a tiny smile tugs at the corners of his lips and he nods, his shoulders slumping in relief that Jaskier doesn’t harbor any blame against him for this. He carefully slips into bed and helps the bard arrange himself so that he’s comfortably draped across Geralt’s warm chest, his head tucked under the Wolf’s chin.

“Geralt?” Jaskier says softly a few minutes later, his voice airy as he totters on the edge of sleep.

“Hm?”

“I love you, Wolf.”

“I love you, too, Kitty.”

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda like this narrative I created so I might turn this into a series of one-shots if anyone would want to see this dynamic/relationship expanded upon.
> 
> I do not give permission for my work to be shared or reposted to any other website other than as a weblink to this Archive of Our Own URL with credit given to me.


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